" Now, in his message to the second session of the First
Congress, he took occasion to suggest to the members "the advancement
of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures," and "the promotion of
science and literature." He advised them to consider whether these
desirable objects could be "best promoted by affording aids to
seminaries of learning already established, by the institution of a
national university, or by any other expedient." These simple and, at
the time, unsuspected phases of paternalism must not be ignored in an
examination of the growth of the Union. The most rigid of the
strict-construction Presidents became helpless before them, or never
foresaw their possibilities. From such small beginnings came the various
scientific expeditions, the investigations for the benefit of
agriculture, the printing and distribution of books, the distribution
of garden seeds, the vast donations of land and money for higher
education, and the many other ways in which the Union has expanded
under no other warrant than the simple requirement in the Constitution
that Congress "promote the progress of science and useful arts by
securing for a limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive
right to their respective writings and discoveries.
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